China's online education market is booming and venture-backed Chinese edtech companies are on the rise. Silicon Dragon interviewed Min Xu, the CFO of NYSE-listed, Beijing-based 51Talk, who told me that the company's billings surged 40% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to a year ago.

He expects the company to break even this year, differentiating with competitors such as VIPKid by focusing on smaller Chinese cities and offering English-language lessons taught by Filipino teachers.

The online learning sector is projected to grow 11 percent annually to reach $341 billion by 2025, with China's market expanding the fastest by 20 percent per year. VCs have rushed in. 51Talk is backed by DCM and Shunwei.

Vickers Venture Partners has raised $200 million for its 6th venture fund. The Singapore-based firm focused on early tech investment in Southeast Asian startups and beyond is targeting $600 million for the fund.

IPOs

The 2020 IPO boom has stopped cold by the coronavirus, reports
Renaissance Capital, which notes that as many as 20 IPOs have been delayed. Still, 24 IPOs raised $6.8 billion in the first quarter though less than expected.

Look for the Nasdaq IPO of China's
WiMi Hologram Cloud, an augmented reality company that makes holographic products and services. The Beijing-based startup originally filed to go public last June and raise $50 million but now enters a tough market with a goal of 33 million at a $385 million market cap.

Research

The coronavirus is impacting global funding of young private companies.

CBI Insights projects that seed-stage funding
will plunge 22% in Q1’20 from Q4’19.

Noteworthy

Marc Benioff of
Salesforce fame notes that he's "
very impressed how the Singapore government has launched new app for contact tracing to combat spread of COVID-19. The app creates contact tracing in the nation-state in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This could be used everywhere!"

One of Qiming’s portfolio companies, Beijing-based Infervision, reached out through the UN to offer its very advanced COVID imaging products to the US but was told by Jared Kushner: we are not considering any Chinese solutions now.

VC Gary Rieschel counters, how about human solutions? Infervision does ultra fast CT scans and gives immediate results on whether COVID 19 is in the lungs.

Besides, Silicon Dragon spots that it's being used in Italy now.

Commentary

The U.S. and China should fight the coronavirus now, quarrel later:

China Institute commentary in the

South China Morning Post.

Silicon Dragon reported several ways that China and the U.S. are collaborating on vaccines and test kits to combat the virus.